Now I really come to look at my Arduino Uno board in detail, it looks like some ham-fisted slob has had at it with an arc welder and ran out of solder half way through before shipping it anyway...

Pin 0 was not even soldered at all! And I have no idea how those blobs of solder ended up on those vias like that, it even bridges two vias together in a nasty way.

What should I do? I've already had to solder on one of the ICSP pins in place because it was sliding in and out of the board and would have fallen out completely if I hadn't. That was some time ago now though, I hadn't even noticed these other faults.

That said, the arduino doesn't seem to complain of anything else, it all seems to work properly.

I'm going to solder the RX pin myself, because it should clearly be connected to the pin header block, but what about the blobs? Should I remove them or are they supposed to bridge like that?

I accept that sometimes humans have to fix up a product that hasn't gone through fabrication very nicely but to leave the job half done like this AND expect me to pay full price for it is a bit cheeky.

I still love the product though and I will no doubt buy more in the future but I'm still a bit ticked off about it.

There were one or two whinges about quality when the Uno first came out, its been pretty quiet since then. My Uno, whilst not as good as a couple of old Duemilanoves I have is OK, my gripes are with the bootloader, having to update the 8U2 firmware (propably a non issue by now) and cheapskate resonator instead of a crystal.

bubulindo, sorry they are on the underside, immediately north of the black 2.1mm power jack socket. To my uneducated eye, they don't look like they should be there, but how to remove them safely without accidentally damaging the via or otherwise ruining the board? Perhaps I should just leave them alone.

Hard to say without a picture to judge. If you do want to remove a little solder, I've had luck using solder wick brade, just lay the end of the brade flat as possible on the blog and apply the iron to the brade, it will suck-up a lot of the excess solder.

I have used that brand, them and MG chemicals the stupid case melts as your using it, though its stuck out quite far

I am becoming a bit of a braid snob, as I use it like toilet paper, and though its nearly 2x the cost I am actually partial to radio shack stuff, it has a courser braid which seems to suck up more per spot, and it has some pretty aggressive flux

Though liquid flux on whatever your about to desolder helps a TON! the radio shack stuff can suck up a normal sized bead on perfboard as is super quick, this stuff and the MG stuff is like wiping up a pile of vomit with a Kleenex without extra flux and fiddling around (maybe becuase its full of crappy plastic before you even get to use it, where as the radio shack spool can take small hits directly from an iron without melting)